Hello,

I am constructing the Tamiya Brewster Buffalo (1/48 scale) and I wish to paint the Netherlands East Indies Army Air Corps variant. On the painting instruction sheet Tamiya says to use their AS12 "Bare-Metal Silver" color paint. What I have in my paint collection is a jar of Tamiya XF-16, will this color work? It is for painting the bottom of the aircraft.

Thanks!

It may not be as shiny as the spray, but it's an aluminium colour and it will look like aluminium, especially if you airbrush it. If you buff it with a little aluminium powder after it dries it'll look much better

Thank you very much.

Hi Wesley

If I remember correctly, the undersides were painted with aluminium lacquer, so if the result looks like paint (rather than NMF), that's bad thing.

All the best

Rowan

The Royal Netherlands Indies Army Air Division's Curtiss Wright CW 21 Interceptors, Brewster 339 Buffaloes, and Curtiss 75 Hawks were camouflaged on the production line with what the Dutch called Oudblad (Old Leaf) and Jongblad (Young Leaf) colours. These are described as being similar to USAAF Bulletin 41 colours Dark Olive Drab and Medium Green. The colours are discussed in Combat Colours Number 4 Pearl Harbor and Beyond, H C Bridgewater and Peter Scott, Guideline Publications. The authors suggest that the colours were Dark Olive Drab 31 (predecessor of Bulletin 41 Dark Olive Drab) and Olive Drab 35 which had a noticeably brown hue.
Oudblad/Dark Olive Drab is described as half way between FS 34079 and 33070 and Jongblad/Light Olive Drab as between FS 34088 and 33440.

Undersides of CW 21 Interceptors and Buffaloes were painted with Aluminium lacquer, Hawks were left bare metal.